The night had fallen cold and starless over Arven, and the alley where Aldric dragged the drunken nobleman was a pit of foul-smelling darkness and silence. There were no witnesses. Only the waning moon peering over the rooftops.
"Mmmph! What the hell! Let go of me, you bastard! Do you know who I am? I'll—I'll—! Ugh!"
The nobleman, a young man in his twenties, tried to struggle against Aldric's grip, his resistance weak, muffled by the alcohol and the knight's large hand covering his mouth. Aldric pinned him against the wall with brutal efficiency, the impact making the young man groan from the blow of air in his lungs.
Kael approached, his steps light on the wet cobblestones. He had sent Elara and Nia away, toward the carriage they had strategically left two streets away. "They must not see this," Kael had ordered, his voice low and definitive. Nia had looked at Kael with a mix of frightened fascination and morbid curiosity, but had obeyed, dragging her sister, whose pale face showed an absolute aversion to danger.
'Good. Their innocence must not be contaminated with necessity,' Kael thought, watching the scene calmly.
"Aldric," Kael spoke, his voice a cold whisper that cut the silence.
"Take your hand off his mouth. I need him to speak. But if he screams, you silence him permanently. Understood?"
"Understood." Aldric nodded, his face grim in the meager light. The prospect of torture, albeit minor, and the probable necessity of murder, was weighing on the knight's soul. It was a debt he could no longer deny.
Aldric released the young man's mouth. He gasped, trying to catch his breath and spitting out the remains of wine.
"Damn it! Who are you? What do you want? I'll give you all my gold! Everything! Just... ugh! Let go of me!"
"Silence," Kael ordered. The tone was not a question. The young man fell silent, the cold authority of the boy imposing itself over the drunken panic.
Kael studied him.
"Your name does not matter. What matters is the information you possess. Why is Daemon Kladis so desperate to marry Elara Voss? The debt settlement is a fact, but Nikolas Kladis does not need a wife for Daemon; he needs money. Daemon is a risk. A weakness."
The young man laughed, a broken, wet sound.
"Elara... she's a hot woman. Daemon wants her, yes. But it's not just that. Do you think Kladis would risk so much for a mere whore with a pretty face? Ha! You're an idiot brat, aren't you?"
Aldric, in a swift and brutal movement, slammed his head against the stone wall with a dry thwack. The young man moaned, his drunkenness disappearing under the impact and the pain. Warm blood began to drip from his temple, mixing with the dampness of the wall.
"Try again. With respect. And with the truth," Aldric hissed, his voice hoarse.
"Damn it! Damn it! It hurts!" The young man tried to cry, but his drunkenness had dried his tears.
"I'll tell! I'll tell! Just don't hit me anymore! My head hurts!"
Kael crouched slightly, bringing his face closer.
"We don't have time for tears. Speak. Why the wedding? What is Nikolas Kladis's real plan?"
"The Torrens... it's because of the Torrens," the young man whispered, his voice now a pathetic thread of fear.
"Nikolas is up to his neck. Debt. Gambling debt. Debt from his failures. Lord Torren... he has Nikolas tied up with contracts that could leave him on the streets. That's why Nikolas is desperate."
"And the Voss family?"
"Elara... the Voss family has something the Torrens want. Not the spice business... that's not worth it. The routes. The old trade routes Donal Voss used at the beginning. Forgotten routes, but shorter, safer... routes that Lord Torren wants for his iron monopoly. If Kladis gets Elara, the Torrens get legal control of the routes through marriage. Kladis settles his debt. Voss loses everything. It's a plan by Lord Torren! Nikolas is just the dog executing it! Daemon is the leash! Please! That's all I know! Let me go!"
Kael straightened up. The puzzle had fit together.
'It is not just Kladis. It is Torren. The House that thinks itself superior, using a parasite like Kladis to do the dirty work and thus keep its reputation clean. Interesting. Much more dangerous.'
"Aldric," Kael ordered in a flat voice, his face expressionless at the young man's agony.
"We need to make sure this information is not shared. Under any circumstances."
The young nobleman, terrified by the implication, tried to plead.
"No! Please! I'm a noble! My family...!"
"Your family will forget you before breakfast," Kael interrupted.
Aldric needed no further orders. A quick, silent, brutal movement. The last thing the noble saw was darkness. His body slid to the ground, with no trace of life.
Kael looked at the corpse.
"Eliminate all trace, Aldric. Make it look like a bad robbery or a drunken accident. But let there be no connection to us. Nor to the Voss family. The bloodstain must fall only on the Kladis or on the victim."
Aldric nodded, his face a mask of cold resignation.
"It will be a long job, young Kael. But it will be done. And what is the cost for this? How many more debts are we creating?"
"One more, Aldric," Kael replied, his voice a whisper in the dark.
"But this debt... this one is with me. With my ambition. And the price is the only secret worth keeping. Return to the Voss house before dawn. Tell them the path is clear. I need a moment to think."
Aldric remained in the alley, the corpse and his own conscience his only company. Kael walked away, leaving the knight with the blood and the death.
'The cost is high,' Kael thought as he walked towards the carriage.
'But the information that Torren is the head of the monster, and not the neck, is priceless.' The coldness of his soul deepened.
'If we are going to fight a monster, we first have to know how many heads it has.'
Aldric watched Kael's figure disappear into the darkness of the alley, swallowed by the shadows. When the boy's footsteps ceased, he released the air he had been holding.
He was left alone with the corpse.
There was no time for curses or laments. Aldric knew what he had to do. It was a dirty job, but it was the job that guaranteed his neck.
He looked down at the young noble. The dead man's eyes were open, glassy, fixed on nothingness with an expression of stupid surprise.
"Bad luck, boy," Aldric muttered in a hoarse voice.
"You played on the wrong board."
He crouched beside the body. His hands, large and calloused, trained for the sword and shield, moved with a grim efficiency he himself hated to acknowledge. He ripped the rings from the limp fingers. He pulled the gold chain from the neck until the clasp yielded. He loosened the coin purse from the belt. It had to look like a common robbery. A drunken man with money who ran into the city's scum.
With a grunt of effort, he lifted the inert body and carried it over his shoulder. He walked toward the back of the alley, where the darkness was absolute and trash was piled in forgotten heaps. There he dropped it behind some rotten barrels. He tore the fine tunic in a couple of places to complete the scene.
He wiped his hands on his own cloak.
"Confused trail," he reminded himself.
He left the alley through the opposite side, walking fast. The city slept around him. At the first intersection, he threw the empty coin purse toward a sewer. Two streets later, he dropped two of the rings near a closed tavern. Finally, he threw the rest of the jewelry into a pile of refuse near the market.
The job was done.
He was walking back toward the carriage, adjusting his gauntlets, when a figure staggered from a dark corner, blocking his way. Another night drunkard, reeking of cheap beer, with a toothless grin and lost eyes.
"Hey... friend..." the man stammered, trying to grab Aldric's arm for support.
"Do you... do you have a coin for a veteran?"
Aldric stopped. The tension of the last few minutes, the cold adrenaline of the murder, all concentrated in his right fist.
He did not say a word.
His fist impacted directly on the drunkard's nose with a dry crunch. The man fell backward like a sack of potatoes, groaning and clutching his bleeding face.
Aldric looked down at him indifferently.
"Get out of the way, you damned scum."
He stepped over him and kept walking. He stopped briefly at a nearby public fountain. He thrust his hands under the stream of icy water, washing quickly to remove the feeling of the alley's grime and the blood of the drunkard he had just hit. He dried himself on his clothes and recomposed his posture. The knight's mask returned to its place.
When he turned the corner, he saw the black vehicle waiting in the gloom. Marcus, the driver, was leaning on the box, his hat pulled down over his eyes, whistling a soft, cheerful tune.
Aldric opened the carriage door.
The interior was in semi-darkness. Kael was sitting in his corner, motionless, observing him with those grey eyes.
Aldric got in and closed the door. He sat opposite the boy and leaned back in the seat with complete normalcy, as if he had just returned from a boring errand.
"Done," he said in a calm voice.
"There was a small incident with a drunk around the corner, I broke his nose so he wouldn't bother. The other... matter, is resolved. He will look like he fell asleep in the trash."
It was a technical lie for the girls' ears, but the look he exchanged with Kael spoke the complete truth.
"Good," Kael replied.
The carriage started with a jolt as Marcus cracked the reins.
Nia had fallen asleep with her head in Elara's lap, exhausted by fear. The girl breathed softly.
Elara was not sleeping. She was sitting, gently stroking Nia's hair. Seeing Aldric enter so calmly, she let out an almost imperceptible sigh. She did not know exactly what had happened, she assumed they had simply beaten the informant to scare him and left him passed out.
"Thank you, Ser Aldric," she whispered, believing the violence had been minimal.
"For... taking care of that."
Aldric shrugged, looking out the window with disinterest.
"He was a loudmouthed drunk. It wasn't difficult."
Kael did not look at anyone either. His attention was on his own hands. He turned them slowly in the dim light, examining the palms. They were clean. Impeccable.
'No blood,' Kael thought.
His mind flew away from the alley. That was already the past. A pawn eliminated. What mattered now was the information they had obtained.
'Torren and Kladis. Alliance by debt. And a rare metal.'
That was the missing piece. The Torrens did not want the Voss spices. They wanted the routes. They wanted the monopoly on that metal for something bigger.
'If I get the proof, I have the Torrens by the neck.'
The carriage turned, entering the street of the Voss residence. Marcus's whistling stopped as the vehicle braked in front of the house.
"We have arrived," Marcus said, his voice breaking the comfortable silence of the journey.
He opened the door and stepped down onto the street. The night air was cool. Aldric followed him down, stretching and naturally cracking his neck.
Elara woke Nia gently. The girl blinked, confused, and got out of the carriage clinging to her sister's hand.
Kael looked at them. They were no longer just victims. They were the key to the next phase.
"Rest," Kael said to Elara.
His tone was soft, but the implicit order was clear.
"Tomorrow will be a long day. I need to see your father early. And I need those ledgers."
Elara nodded, grateful the night was over.
"Yes. Tomorrow."
Kael turned to Aldric and walked toward the entrance of the house, his mind already working on the next move, leaving behind the night, the alley, and the corpse that secured its silence.
The game had changed. And Kael Drayvar had the first turn.